Medical sources in Gaza reported Friday that the death toll from Israel’s ongoing military onslaught on the Gaza Strip has soared to at least 52,787, with the number of wounded rising to 119,349, as the humanitarian catastrophe deepens in the besieged enclave.

The devastating figures reflect the deadly impact of Israel’s continuous aggression, which began on October 7, 2023, and has since turned large swathes of Gaza into uninhabitable rubble. In addition to the confirmed casualties, more than 10,000 individuals remain missing, believed to be buried beneath the ruins of their destroyed homes.

The recent escalation in violence came after Israel unilaterally ended a temporary ceasefire on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, resuming large-scale attacks across the Strip. Since then, 2,678 Palestinians have been killed and another 7,308 injured in a span of just seven weeks.

Over the past 24 hours alone, 27 bodies — including one recovered from beneath collapsed buildings — and 85 wounded individuals were brought to overwhelmed hospitals across the Strip. With Gaza’s healthcare system on the verge of total collapse, medical staff are struggling to treat the rising number of victims amid severe shortages of medicine, fuel, and electricity.

The war has also caused the mass displacement of nearly two million Palestinians, forcing the vast majority of them into Rafah, a small southern city near the Egyptian border. Once home to fewer than 300,000 people, Rafah is now sheltering over four times its population, with families crammed into makeshift tents and public facilities under dire conditions.

Observers and human rights groups have likened the scale of forced displacement to the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their homes during the creation of Israel. The current exodus has been described as Palestine’s largest mass displacement since that time.

Despite mounting international condemnation and calls from the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire, Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions have continued unabated, raising fears of further escalation and deepening the humanitarian crisis. (ILKHA)